The anterior shoulder (pectoral muscles, anterior deltoids, biceps, forearms and all connective tissue associated with these muscle groups) often becomes tight and dominant over the posterior shoulder, resulting in rounded shoulders, poor posture, and other complications. This is particularly problematic with subjects who spend substantial amounts of time working at computers. The applicant speculates that this anterior shoulder dominance and associated lack of flexibility in the anterior shoulder may also be associated with emerging nerve-related conditions such as occupational overuse syndrome (OOS), repetitive stress injury (RSI), and carpel tunnel syndrome. Since the anterior muscle groups tend to dominate they need to be addressed first before attempting to correct problems with the often under-used posterior muscle groups.
In addition to the needs of the general population as outlined above, there also exists a need amongst athletes for an anterior shoulder stretching device for the purpose of preventing or rehabilitating shoulder injuries, and for maximising performance. In this regard, anterior shoulder flexibility is required for any sporting activity which requires balanced shoulder muscle groups for either performance or injury prevention, e.g. throwing or swimming.
The anterior shoulder is particularly difficult to stretch without assistance. Accordingly, to date, useful anterior shoulder stretching has required the assistance of a therapist. Typically, the therapist will stand behind the seated or standing subject, will support the centre of the subject's back, and will pull the subject's arms rearwardly to thereby stretch the anterior shoulder. The stretch can be varied by rotating the subjects wrists so that the palms of the subject's hands may point upwardly, forwardly, or downwardly. These variations particularly alter the degree of stretch felt in the biceps, forearms, deltoids and pectoral muscles depending on the orientation of the palms and wrists and forearms.
There are several disadvantages associated with the prior art assisted stretches. Firstly, they require the presence of an assistant. Given that stretching should occur regularly, it is often impossible to have access to an assistant at the desired times. Secondly, there is the tendency of the subject to not relax fully and maximise the stretch, particularly where the shoulder is injured and painful. In this regard, the natural self-preservation instinct is to not fully trust the assistant and to resist the stretch to not allow the full effect of the stretch to be maximised.